Ships of Valor 1: Persona Non Grata

by Aaron Kennedy

  With this in mind, we had to decide where to send the boat. We were designing a narrative and we wanted whoever found the bait to make a few assumptions. For maximum effect, it would be best if our unknown antagonist thought Heart’s crew survived. They would know where he crashed into the Pacific, establishing a possible range of where we could turn up based on the tides. We also didn’t want to give up Heart’s position in the trench nor mine in New Zealand, so we had to be cautious of the direction we sent the boat.

  Using the cardinal directions, we had several islands to the north, Antarctica to the south, several South Pacific islands and South America to our east, and New Zealand and Oceania to the west. East was out due to distance and Antarctica excluded because of the population. We decided to ignore New Zealand and instead focus northward. Because we were using a lifeboat, the idea of taking it to the closest and largest population center made the most sense. The Fiji Islands.

  Chapter 23

  I had thought the most boring thing in the world was sitting through Thom Knox teaching spaceflight theory and regulation. I rescind all comments regarding that, as I wished I had the aforementioned spoon while waiting for something to happen to our discarded lifeboat. Even the cat had decided sitting on the sloop’s bonnet was far more interesting than waiting for something to happen on the screens.

  The boat’s sensors gave us a great view of a deserted beach as we awaited discovery. Maneuvering ended up being far simpler than I had imagined. Heart didn’t have to deal with the blinding fear that had driven me during our adventure with the sloop; so for him, he was simply shifting an empty container from one location to another. Without having to worry about me, he didn’t even have to leave the safety of the trenches and was able to remotely guide the lifeboat underwater until it was a stone’s throw from our pre-planned destination.

  As soon as it beached, Heart created a false log and transferred it. He didn’t think the records would stand up too much scrutiny, but we weren’t expecting anyone to take an in-depth look either. The most complex part of the plan was actually opening the hatches and making the boat look abandoned. Heart used his drones to create a lived-in look, and for added realism banged it along the local reefs to mar it up a tad. As a final touch, he turned on the emergency beacon at the lowest power possible. That would call for help, but make it appear as though the signal had been blocked during its journey to the beach.

  We weren’t sure how the lifeboat would be discovered or what the reaction would be when it was so we sat and waited for something, anything really, to happen. We had one screen dedicated to video feeds directly from the boat, another to flight tracking from the local airport, and a third to any report mentioning shipwrecks, boating accidents, or anything even remotely related to the three-hundred plus Fiji Islands.

  Eventually, we spotted a report concerning a derelict ship matching our baby. Within five minutes, the report disappeared, replaced with a much less descriptive one implying a potential hazardous waste spill. Looked like someone had taken our bait.

  Heart began tracking both the original report and its revision to see if he could determine who had modified it. The initial reporting from the one of the locals spotting the crash resulted in the calling of the Fiji Navy. Before they could route one of their patrol skimmers to the site the report had been modified to include enough danger to isolate it. We had chosen the location to ensure if the boat was attacked immediately the collateral damage would be minimal. We didn’t want to be responsible for someone getting caught in a crossfire if we could avoid it. It looked like our adversary had a similar plan.

  Unfortunately, whoever had modified the report was protected by enough security layers Heart couldn’t track them back to its source. The situation changed when a handful of mid-sized hoppers appeared on radar. Although Heart wasn’t able to pinpoint where their flight had originated, he was able to get transponder information. That of itself didn’t provide much except linking back to corporate funds instead of a government. He was still trying to unravel ownership when the first shuttle arrived.

  I’d love to say seeing the shuttles revealed our foe, but sadly the hoppers were rather nondescript. The surprise came with a blonde woman with short-cropped hair weighing maybe sixty-kilos hopped out, followed by what looked like a full squad of armed troopers. Each wore olive fatigues and light body armor, but the weaponry was definitely lethal. The fact a woman was leading wasn’t in itself surprising. I’ve worked with women in the past and they can be every bit as tough and as mean as guys.

  It was her size that caught me off-guard. Changing gravity like firearms can be great equalizer but Terra’s high relative gravity would be a disadvantage for any smaller person. Out in space where things were kept closer to Luna standard, her size really wouldn’t be a disadvantage because weight and strength are inverses of each other. There’s an upper limit to how much a person ever has to lift because of volume. Things get too bulky and unwieldy for a single person to deal with.

  Being on Terra, her size could be a major disadvantage as mass becomes more valuable the higher the gravity. Size meant more muscle, and even inefficient muscle ended up trumping size in the end. A product of ratio. The more a person weighed, the less they were lifting relative to their own bodyweight. For a guy like myself carrying thirty kilos was over a third my weight, but for her, the same amount would be closer to half. She had to work harder to accomplish the same things.

  Her front position combined with the way she carried herself implied she was the leader. Not as palpable as Lysha or Robert, but this was definitely her team. The other telling aspect was the team’s loadout. Gear is always tailored towards the mission, even with a standard equipment set. This group was dressed for action not to investigate. I didn’t see an obvious medic or anyone there to help would be survivors. So obviously an assault squad.

  That isn’t to say there wouldn’t be people in the other shuttles to help, but this did not look like a rescue operation. The squads positioning on the beach and their quick clearing of the lifeboat confirmed my suspicions. They weren’t hoping for survivors.

  After the first clearing, the second shuttle landed with what appeared to be a tech team. They were slower and more methodical until one realized there was a hidden signal inside the emergency beacon. We were forced to cut our spying short, but we had lots of faces to research.

  Identifying two dozen faces out of the billions who lived on Terra would normally be impossible due to the quantity of candidates. But combined with the transponders and the ability to track the shuttles back to their base narrowed the search enough to make it at least feasible. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see what happened to the boat itself, but sacrificing it gained us information we didn’t have before. The shuttles were based out of Hong Kong.

  Chapter 24

  My assertion all cities are the same fell apart when we started to research Hong Kong. As a city, she paralleled Ganymede in a lot of ways but was even more densely packed than Luna City. Where things fell apart was Luna City had the ability to expand outward and downward but Hong Kong could only expand upward. She had been packed to her proverbial borders even before the galactic era. Our hiding spot in Auckland seemed positively rural in comparison.

  Going from billions to tens of millions of residents helped our tracking, but Hong Kong was still a behemoth of a place. Outside of New Edo in Japan, she had more of a corporate presence than anywhere else on Terra. Heart began his research trying to link the transponders to a specific corp, but that idea quickly turned impossible. As an alternative, he started running the faces through the net itself and ended up pinging one of the technicians through a hiring site. That gave us the name, Lee Mendez, and even a work history. Using Mr. Mendez’s most current job, a position at Galactic Subsidiaries Incorporated we were able to identify most of the strike team on Fiji. GSI seemed to be the phantom who had been haunting us. Regrettably, there were a few faces we couldn’t confirm and among them was the expedition
’s lightweight leader.

  Knowing the company changed our approach as well. GSI was a big privately owned company. I didn’t know much about it, but Heart seemed intimately familiar with it. “It is what can best be described as a post-hyperspace conglomerate. The Zhang family has held it for several generations, but there are many smaller companies, purchased piecemeal since its founding. GSI was a minor competitor of Dixon Holdings before we became Luna Corporation.” I asked if this was some sort of grudge. “Improbable. The relationship was more of rivals than enemies even back when Master Dixon still controlled the company. Both companies have since shifted focus and our interests usually do not conflict.”

  Why in the hell would they want us dead? If GSI and Luna Corp weren’t opponents it didn’t make sense to target us. I was so glad I had Heart to ask these questions. “I have been thinking about that and I have a theory. When we first approached this, we were looking for nations who could profit from the dissonance. I was unable to find any advantage. If we apply the same concept to a corporation, it becomes feasible. I have been researching corporations since Fiji, and this new model seems to work. Unfortunately, it would take a concerted effort for this to occur. It’s very complex and I am not sure how this effort would be organized.” If I understood him right, the source of Terra’s problems wasn’t a government. I said that was good news at least. “I cannot rule out governmental agencies after applying the new data, as it would require some involvement; however, the goal runs counter to self-interest. A participant would have to intentionally destroy their own environment to make this feasible.”

  I hated to think of Heart as naïve, but this was definitely one of those cases. People are self-serving to the point where they don’t realize their actions can be detrimental. It’s entirely possible to make choices hindering us in the long run. Short-term gains versus long-term losses. Greed is both a powerful motivator and a blinding influence. I tried to explain this to him without sounding condescending. “Ari, that logic is irrational.” I countered with the fact humans are irrational creatures. We don’t have logic-check processes the same way computers do. It’s easy for use to make flawed decisions based on emotion or bad data. “I think I understand, but the concept is so alien.” His statement got me to laughing.

  It was such a strange concept having Heart call humans alien. An apt description, though. We had different thought patterns than him, and even though he had modeled himself after us during his awakening, he did so as an outsider looking in. He was a very accomplished mimic who duplicated how he thought we behaved but didn’t understand why we did certain things. Our underlying logic was massively different from his. This actually worked to our benefit, though. He was able to see things from a different angle and we complemented each other.

  This, in turn, got me to thinking about when the General first broached the mission. One of the major reasons he and Lysha chose me was my ability to blend in. That ability was partially from my thinking like a Terran. Terra is a big place, and different communities have different cultures. Maybe we were looking at what would be the equivalent of alien thinking. I broached the idea with Heart. “That could be. Everything is foreign to me, so I had not considered it might also be to you.” Problems without solutions. I told him I didn’t know how this information could help us. “I can apply these new variables, and attempt to come up with new parameters for our model. Culture is not something I truly grasp, so I am not sure what the results will be.”

  I told him to add it to our ever-growing the mystery pile as we moved onto our next major argument of what location was best for me. This time, our stances were reversed as he suggested I delve into the rats’ nest of Hong Kong while I leaned towards caution.

  “I believe you will actually be safer there.” I, of course, thought the seals leading to his computer bays had been compromised and told him so. “It will be much more difficult for a major corporation to actively engage you openly inside Hong Kong than your present location. Additionally, the same logic applies for why you chose Auckland over the capital, more population to hide within.” In addition, a lot of water between that big city and me. I mentioned I truly wasn’t comfortable skimming across a quarter the Pacific Ocean. “The sloop is able to traverse the distance very quickly. The risk is minimal if we plan accordingly.”

  My battle senses were flaring but Heart was the one running the math. I knew he had my best interest at the forefront of his mind and if he said Hong Kong was safer and was better for the mission, then I needed to listen to him.

  Chapter 25

  It turns out my battle senses were correct. I’ve gone soft in my old age but not in the usual ways. The proof was the constant chirping accompanying me from the passenger seat as I accelerated over the Philippine Sea. Our lady and mistress, the cat, had decided she was not going to be left in Auckland. As soon as I unhitched the reactor from the equipment, she ducked under the passenger seat of the sloop and couldn’t be coaxed out. It wasn’t until we were over New Guinea that she popped her head out for a half a second, and then jumped up on the passenger chair in a much more relaxed fashion as though we weren’t traveling slightly under the speed of sound. I gave her a quick scratch between the ears and focused on getting to Hong Kong.

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought about how long it would actually take to make the trip. The distance between Auckland and Hong Kong runs at over nine thousand kilometers. I could have bumped up the speed and cut the time in half or more, but we were trying to keep a low profile. Staying below the speed of sound was one of best ways to do that. The last thing we wanted was a sonic boom over a populated area annoying the locals and drawing attention to us.

  “I have modified your lodging arrangements to something more pet-friendly, Ari. The original hotel did not accept animals. I am still not sure why you could not leave her behind.” I let him know that was never an option. The second we fed her, we took on an obligation. It was simply a case of whether we were taking her with us to Hong Kong or Luna. She decided she was going to be with us the entire journey. “In that case, should we name her?” Damn, Heart was indeed a Looney down at his core. I had told him we had a new family member, and rather than any sort of argument, he was more interested in names.

  Until that point I had been thinking of her as the cat, but Heart had a point. I had been avoiding the inevitable. I asked if he had any ideas. “How about Em?” I asked him if he meant the letter. “No, as in Aunty Em from The Wizard of Oz. You made reference to the novel upon our arrival.” I absolutely had to hear his logic on this one. “The story referred to her as grayed out, and the cat is a female gray tabby. You seem to like the book as well.” I looked at the cat and tried it. She echoed back at me. Well then, Em it was.

  I cut speed as I got closer to Hong Kong’s controlled airspace. My dampers displaying the up to the minute information from Heart. How had I ever lived without these? Research will only provide so much about a city. It gives a lot of data but raw information is sterile and lifeless. Seeing a city in person changes that. I had spent so long not seeing anyone but Em when I started to see hoppers my excitement rose. Like the pre-fall jitters but instead of jitters, I was actually looking forward to it. From the first other sighting to the eventual swarm it took perhaps a half hour to see the tops of the city over the horizon.

  Normally the horizon would only be thirty or so kilometers depending on the height of the buildings we were dealing with. We were at almost three times that distance and she looked like Auckland had when we left. The closer we got, the bigger she became to the point of becoming unfathomable. The skyscrapers butted up to the seawall to the point where nothing urban remained. Teeth biting into the sky.

  I was too far out and moving too fast to see people. When I did get close enough I had to pick up height for the hotel Heart had lined up. A warehouse wasn’t feasible and the best he could arrange was a room with an external parking dock. The setup was reminiscent of Heart’s own fabrication bays with the sliding d
oor. Having completed the maneuver once under water, completing it a second time was surprisingly simple, even in the air. As soon as the bay door was closed, I opened the canopy and carried Em into the suite.

  I set her down and watched for a solid ten minutes as she sauntered about hissing at walls asserting her dominance and then curled up into the refresher sink for a nap. Em had the right idea. We’d been traveling for a third of a day. I needed to wash the stink off and take a nap myself. I set the shower and dumped my clothes into the laundry. The shower was a bit of an indulgence at a full half hour but when finished I felt nice and relaxed. The bed called to me.

  It took maybe two minutes before I was out. The last thing I remembered was Em curled up on the pillow beside me.

  Chapter 26

  “We could simply ask one of them?” Like Heart had a completely reasonable idea. I told him he was out of his ever-loving mind. “No, seriously. GSI is based out of Hong Kong. Could you not approach an employee, and gather information?” I was flabbergasted. I argued there was the matter of our cover for starters. “We could use more illicit techniques.”

  I went from flabbergasted to a dead stop. I had never considered what he would consider right and wrong. Those are distinctly human concepts. Heart was absolutely a person, but being a person didn’t make him human, and not being human meant his ethical and moral inclinations didn’t always align the same ways ours did. I knew he valued life but there were other human concepts he didn’t understand. Didn’t translate across species.

  I had him clarify to make sure I wasn’t making crazy assumptions. “We have a list of names. We can track one or more down, and from there convince them to provide additional information. As Master Dixon would say, escalate their self-interest.” Now that was a morally gray statement if I ever heard one. Before I let my emotions get the better of me, I told him to explain. “I was thinking bribery, but we could definitely lean towards more surreptitious means if you think it wise.” Whoa. I put the kibosh on that line of thought quick.